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James Bacon Editors Chris Garcia [email protected] The Drink Tank Issue 283 - May 2011 James Bacon & Chris Garcia - Editors Page 1 - Table of Contents Page 10 - Railway Modelling by 1/2 Cruttenden Photo by Howeird Art by Roy D. Pounds II “Sorry, no can do. I’m not a modeller.” Page 2 - Editorial by Christopher J Garcia Art by Roy D. Pounds II Page 12 - The Oddness of Ireland - Model Trains “Of course, the trains were the cheapest ones ever by James Bacon made.” “The Slainte Express is especially sickening.” Page 3 - The Day At The Depot by James Bacon Page 14 - The MIT Tech Model Rail Road Club Photos by James Bacon by Christopher J Garcia “It is an interesting subject, crashing two of my “You don’t have to be an engineer to be into model personal favourites together...” trains, but the paycheck helps!” Page 6 - Railway Connections Page 19 - All Aboard by Fred Lerner by Alastair Reynolds Art by Roy D. Pounds Photos by Alastair Reynolds “Another bucolic land needing improved transportation is “My first love is the Great Western Railway.” Islandia.” Page 8 - Confusing the Real and The Simulated for Fun and Profit by Moshe Feder “..they can be mistaken for the real things...” Comments? [email protected] I had a train set when I was a kid. 1860 Briar- Of course, the trains were the cheapest ones wood Dr.’s garage was famous in the neighborhood for ever made. the train set. It was a piece of plywood on top of two I swear they were made from former plastic saw-horses. Dad made it himself. I should have known milkjugs. They were cheap, something like 3 dollars a that something was up when four year old Chris wasn’t car, and they were all-plastic. You could only run the allowed in the garage for a month. The garage was my engine for a few minutes before you had to stop and favorite place other than the toybox where I’d throw let it cool or little whisps of acrid black smoke would out all my toys and climb in with all my blankets. The ga- come off of it. It was a piece of crap, but it was mine. rage was transformed, a car never again parking inside. Well, it was actually Dad’s, but I got to play with The reason it was famous? It was almost all pa- it. per. I lost interest when I got into baseball and roll- Dad, ever a DIY man, made the buildings from er skates and books and my Fisher-Price tape recorder. heavy, folded paper. He’d take them from work and I would go in and play with the set-up once in a while, come home and do his version of origami. It was the but it never held the sway again. We moved from 1860 kind of origami done with scissors and tape. He’d draw Briarwood in 1987, a full 9 years after Dad made it, and out buildings and then cut them up, fold them into we never took it down. It wasn’t until we moved to a shape, install them This allowed him to make hundreds smaller apartment that the set-up was tossed, the cars of different buildings. Sometimes, he’d improvise, like and engine along with it, the paper buildings crumbled taking the Quaker Oats tube and turning it into a grain up and binned. silo, or the time he turned a mini cereal box into a sort This issue is about model trains, one of those of Arc de Triumph for the layout. In the three years that things that a lot of us have in common. We loved them I was interested in it, there were hundreds of different once, some of us forever, and we all have stories about buildings, that we’d cycle in and out. Dad even made a them. three story firehouse that was a near-exact duplicate And these are ours... of the one that he worked at! The Day At The Depot by James Bacon It’s a wet and dreary Sunday morning, I feel a is their overstock storage space and its pretty awe- mild fug upon myself as I awaken, I throw down two some, and brilliant, that well, people like me, twice a paracetamol and following a shower and Coffee I am year get to look into the store room, and see all the alive. cool things. Strangely I As I walked question whether I up the sloped road am mad or just mad. to the Depot, an old I am up a little ear- Routemaster bus, lier than expected, which was running I have had a good a shuttle drive past, eight hours sleep, but and made for the de- I fell into bed at 2am pot itself. The smell of following a long but smoke was in the air, not arduous shift. In- and the Acton Min- stead of lounging or iature railway had a relaxing I am prompt 4-4-0 London Under- about my move- ground Metropoli- ments. I start work tan Steam train, on today at 4pm. 16 oh a 71⁄4” gauge track, something to be ex- drawing two carriag- act, but shift working es with children atop is odd like this, so although I don’t have an evening like it, puffing away from a covered space, which was the a nine to fiver this morning I have a few hours, and my station in this narrow gauge world. It is a beautiful en- intent is clear. gine, visiting the AMR which has a permanent line laid It is a very short drive from Uxbridge where out in the grounds of the Museum. I am currently staying to Acton. Acton is one of those The metropolitan railway are one of the most west London boroughs that has a lot of railway stations interesting metro railways, having a freight operation - tube stations - and a pretty serous depot I supposed at one stage as well as going some distance out of the the land was available. city. East Acton north Acton and West Acton are all This year, I was focussed on the model rail- on the central line - East acton is a eight minute walk to ways which use London Underground as their focus. my work at old oak common, Acton central and Acton Although there was once a London Underground train south are on the London overground. Acton Town is set from Ever Ready, it seems to be a railway that has on the Piccadilly and district line, while Acton Mainline not had much popularity, as some companies, in the is on the Great Western Mainline and I pass through it modelling world. Perhaps its the unusual setting or the when I drive my train. difficult in modelling it, but this means that there are a I drove down to Acton Town, where there are more select bunch who go out and model these trains, a number of major train depots, one of which is a de- and also the art of necessity bringing on invention is pot especially for the London Transport Museum. This quite fervent. ERTL make diescast model Underground trains ally a manufacturer of model trains. I got chatting with as static displays, and these form the basis of many a one of the men, he explained that they design and model, as they are relatively easy to modify to run on manufacture ready to run ‘00’ scale etched brass mod- regular HO track. els of tube trains as well as stocking the EFE tube which It also has created what could be considered a can be purchased as static displays or with motors fit- Cottage Industry, Metro Models which have the won- ted. der ‘Abbey Rd’ model, which brilliantly demonstrates The owner John Polley faced many difficulties the different type of stock on the Underground as well building and running his first model, and from this his as featuring part of the station – sub-surface- are actu- company was born and now today they have a factory workshop operation in Sri Lanka. The variety of trains that this model had, the modern and old Tube and Sub-surface stock, the per- manent way machines, the Isle of Wight liveried stock, it’s wonderful, and the greatest advertisement for not only having a model, which is fairly unique, but also for the will power of people who enjoy the hobby. On then to London Rd., another timeless set- ting to allow a number of workings to pass through. This model is some 30 years old, but like many things has been renewed, with points and signalling being up- graded. I especially like the North London line workings. Again a whole fleet of different trains are on hand. I walk around the museum, which I love, mostly for its rawness and the fact that it’s a working museum, where not only can you get close to things but get in and look around. And then I see that as if in some sort of crazy synchronicity, the greatest London Transport ‘what if’ is sitting there with a south Croydon destina- tion blind on it. The rear engine Routemaster. It may look like similar buses of the rear engine period, but this one is fairly special, it was the failed attempt at common sense. Routemasters, out lived many hundreds of the initial rear engine successors, and the work load and time associated with the rear engine buses took the bus industry London Transport by surprise.

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